Σύντομα, το μόνο password που θα χρειαζόμαστε, θα είναι το … σώμα μας !!!

σχόλιο ID-ont: Ένα θέμα το οποίο το έχουμε ξαναθίξει από το blog μας. Σκεφθείτε να έχεις καταπιεί το χάπι, να σου το χακάρουν (παρεμβαίνοντας στην ασύρματη επικοινωνια του με τον έξω κόσμο) και η μόνη λύση να είναι να πάρεις καθαρτικό για να ξεφορτωθείς γρήγορα τους χακαρισμένους κωδικούς, προκειμένου να πάρεις νέο χάπι! Κι αν σου χακάρουν επι τόπου το νέο χάπι; Δεν θα μπορείς να απομακρυνθείς από τον πορσελάνινο "θρόνο" με τίποτα... 

Τα πράγματα θα πάνε πολύ πιο πέρα ​​από την χρήση ενός αναγνώστη δακτυλικού  αποτυπώματος ή ίριδας για να αποκτήσουμε πρόσβαση στο smartphone μας ή σε άλλες συσκευές που χρησιμοποιούμε κάθε μέρα. Η τεχνολογία των καταπόσιμων (ingestible) αισθητήρων εξακολουθεί να είναι στην αιχμή, αλλά είναι ήδη σε εφαρμογή σε μια ποικιλία πολύ πρακτικών εφαρμογών.

Η εταιρεία Proteus Digital Health (http://www.proteusdigitalhealth.com), η οποία εδρεύει στο Bay Area της Καλιφόρνια, έχει αναπτύξει ένα «χάπι», το οποίο είναι πραγματικά ένας μικρός αισθητήρας που μπορεί να μεταδώσει πληροφορίες σε πραγματικό χρόνο σε ένα κινητό τηλέφωνο μέσω ενός εξαρτήματος που φοριέται στο σώμα.

Το χάπι μπορεί να παράσχει στοιχεία σχετικά με το πώς αντιδρά το σώμα στα φάρμακα που παίρνει κάποιος, καθώς και να καταγράφει πότε λαμβάνονται. Το χάπι μπορεί επίσης να ανιχνεύσει πρότυπα κίνησης και άλλες συνήθειες του ατόμου που παρακολουθεί. Η συσκευή εγκρίθηκε από το FDA το περασμένο έτος. Δεν υπάρχει καμία μπαταρία στο χάπι, απλά έχει μαγνήσιο και χαλκό σε κάθε πλευρά του και αντιδρά με το οξύ του στομάχου για να έχει αρκετή ενέργεια για να λειτουργήσει.

Ένα άλλο χάπι, το οποίο ονομάζεται CorTemp Ingestible Core Body Temperature Sensor (Καταπόσιμος Αισθητήρας Θερμοκρασίας Σώματος) και κατασκευάζεται από την HQ, Inc (http://www.hqinc.net/) στη Φλόριντα, διαθέτει ενσωματωμένη μπαταρία και μεταδίδει ασύρματα σε πραγματικό χρόνο τη θερμοκρασία του πυρήνα του σώματος καθώς ταξιδεύει μέσω της πεπτικής οδού. Το CorTemp έχει χρησιμοποιηθεί σε επαγγελματίες ποδοσφαιριστές, σε στρατιώτες και στους αστροναύτες για να διασφαλιστεί ότι δεν θα έχουν θερμοκρασία που σχετίζεται με τραυματισμό κατά τη διάρκεια της εκπαίδευσης, του αγώνα ή της αποστολής.

Εκεί που μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν αυτές οι συσκευές είναι προφανώς οι «εφαρμογές της ευκολίας»: Θα παίρνετε ένα χάπι το πρωί και το αυτοκίνητό σας θα ξεκλειδώσει αυτόματα, δεν θα χρειαστεί να πληκτρολογήσετε έναν κωδικό πρόσβασης για να αποκτήσετε πρόσβαση στο smartphone σας. Φεύγετε από το σπίτι σας και αυτό κλειδώνει.

Τι συμβαίνει όταν το χάπι αχρηστεύεται; Τότε, το χάπι θα περάσει μέσα από το πεπτικό σύστημα και θα εκκενωθεί με τον κανονικό τρόπο. Η κα Carbonelli, διευθύντρια μάρκετινγκ επισημαίνει μια δυσάρεστη πραγματικότητα με την νέα αυτή τεχνολογία, «Περνά φυσικά μέσα από το σώμα σε περίπου 24 ώρες,» είπε η κα Carbonelli, «αλλά δεδομένου ότι κάθε χάπι κοστίζει $ 46, μερικοί άνθρωποι επιλέγουν να το ανακτήσουν και να το ανακυκλώσουν» !

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Soon-our-bodies-will-become-the-only-password-we-will-need_id44627

Soon, our bodies will become the only password we will need

Indeed, things will go way beyond a fingerprint scanner or eye-print reader to gain access to your smartphone or other conveniences we use every day. The technology of ingestible sensors is still on the leading edge, but is out there and being used in a variety of very practical applications.

Proteus Digital Health, based in the Bay Area of California, has developed a “pill” which is really a tiny sensor that can transmit real-time information to a cell phone via a patch worn on the body.

The pill can provide data related to how the body reacts to medications when they are taken as well as log when they are taken.  The pill can also detect movement and rest patterns of the person it is monitoring.  The device was approved by the FDA last year.  There is no battery in the pill, simply it has magnesium and copper on each side and it reacts to the stomach acid to provide enough power to function.

Another pill, called the CorTemp Ingestible Core Body Temperature Sensor and manufactured by HQ, Inc. in Florida, has a built-in battery and it wirelessly transmits real-time core body temperature as it travels through the digestive tract.  The CorTemp has been used in pro football players, soldiers and astronauts to ensure they do not suffer a heat related injury during training, games or missions.

What may be next for these types of devices are obviously applications of convenience. Take a pill in the morning and your car will automatically unlock for you, and you will not need to type in a password to access your smartphone. Leave the house and it locks itself.

What happens when the pill is done? Well the pill will pass through the digestive tract and evacuate itself in the normal manner (while sitting on the porcelain throne of thought). Ms. Carbonelli, HQ Inc. marketing director notes an unpleasant reality with such new technology, “It passes naturally through the body in about 24 hours,” Ms. Carbonelli said, but since each pill costs $46, “some people choose to recover and recycle it.”

Disruptions: Medicine That Monitors You

SAN FRANCISCO — They look like normal pills, oblong and a little smaller than a daily vitamin. But if your doctor writes a prescription for these pills in the not-too-distant future, you might hear a new twist on an old cliché: “Take two of these ingestible computers, and they will e-mail me in the morning.”

As society struggles with the privacy implications of wearable computers like Google Glass, scientists, researchers and some start-ups are already preparing the next, even more intrusive wave of computing: ingestible computers and minuscule sensors stuffed inside pills.

 

HQ, Inc. The CorTemp pill, from HQ Inc., has a built-in battery and wirelessly transmits real-time body temperature.

Although these tiny devices are not yet mainstream, some people on the cutting edge are already swallowing them to monitor a range of health data and wirelessly share this information with a doctor. And there are prototypes of tiny, ingestible devices that can do things like automatically open car doors or fill in passwords.

For people in extreme professions, like space travel, various versions of these pills have been used for some time. But in the next year, your family doctor — at least if he’s technologically adept — could also have them in his medicinal tool kit.

Inside these pills are tiny sensors and transmitters. You swallow them with water, or milk if you’d prefer. After that, the devices make their way to the stomach and stay intact as they travel through the intestinal tract.

“You will — voluntarily, I might add — take a pill, which you think of as a pill but is in fact a microscopic robot, which will monitor your systems” and wirelessly transmit what is happening, Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, said last fall at a company conference. “If it makes the difference between health and death, you’re going to want this thing.”

One of the pills, made by Proteus Digital Health, a small company in Redwood City, Calif., does not need a battery. Instead, the body is the power source. Just as a potato can power a light bulb, Proteus has added magnesium and copper on each side of its tiny sensor, which generates just enough electricity from stomach acids.

As a Proteus pill hits the bottom of the stomach, it sends information to a cellphone app through a patch worn on the body. The tiny computer can track medication-taking behaviors — “did Grandma take her pills today, and what time?” — and monitor how a patient’s body is responding to medicine. It also detects the person’s movements and rest patterns.

Executives at the company, which recently raised $62.5 million from investors, say they believe that these pills will help patients with physical and neurological problems. People with heart failure-related difficulties could monitor blood flow and body temperature; those with central nervous system issues, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, could take the pills to monitor vital signs in real time. The Food and Drug Administration approved the Proteus pill last year.

A pill called the CorTemp Ingestible Core Body Temperature Sensor, made by HQ Inc. in Palmetto, Fla., has a built-in battery and wirelessly transmits real-time body temperature as it travels through a patient.

Firefighters, football players, soldiers and astronauts have used the device so their employers can monitor them and ensure they do not overheat in high temperatures. CorTemp began in 2006 as a research collaboration from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Lee Carbonelli, HQ’s marketing director, said the company hoped, in the next year, to have a consumer version that would wirelessly communicate to a smartphone app.

Future generations of these pills could even be convenience tools.

Last month, Regina Dugan, senior vice president for Motorola Mobility’s advanced technology and projects group, showed off an example, along with wearable radio frequency identification tattoos that attach to the skin like a sticker, at the D: All Things Digital technology conference.

Once that pill is in your body, you could pick up your smartphone and not have to type in a password. Instead, you are the password. Sit in the car and it will start. Touch the handle to your home door and it will automatically unlock. “Essentially, your entire body becomes your authentication token,” Ms. Dugan said.

But if people are worried about the privacy implications of wearable computing devices, just wait until they try to wrap their heads around ingestible computing.

“This is yet another one of these technologies where there are wonderful options and terrible options, simultaneously,” said John Perry Barlow, a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group. “The wonderful is that there are a great number of things you want to know about yourself on a continual basis, especially if you’re diabetic or suffer from another disease. The terrible is that health insurance companies could know about the inner workings of your body.”

And the implications of a tiny computer inside your body being hacked? Let’s say they are troubling.

There is, of course, one last question for this little pill. After it has done its job, flowing down around the stomach and through the intestinal tract, what happens next?

“It passes naturally through the body in about 24 hours,” Ms. Carbonelli said, but since each pill costs $46, “some people choose to recover and recycle it.”

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/disruptions-medicine-that-monitors-you/?_r=3